A 48 year old bottle and scrap metal dealer, Abdul Rasheed has been sentenced to 16 years imprisonment for raping a 13 year old girl on different occasions from 2005 to 2011.
While sentencing the man today, Justice Paul Madigan said in recent months, the community has become particularly aware of the growing prevalence of rape, particularly rapes of children as young as nine months.
He said it is for the courts to pass sentences to show the community that crime of this nature will not go unpunished and heavy sentences will be meted out to deter would be sexual abusers.
Justice Madigan said the highly aggravating features in this particular case is that the rapes were affected by the use of witchcraft and fraud as Rasheed told the family that the 13 year old girl was possessed and he could cure her.
According to court documents, he tricked the family into buying items like a tabua, masi and tanoa for witchcraft purposes and also tricked them by saying that something bad was put in the 13 year old girl's food at school and her stomach was full of worms.
Justice Madigan said the father trusted Rasheed and allowed him to heal his daughter.
The court said there was a prolonged pattern of rape over 6 years, Rasheed demonstrated no remorse whatsoever, he sent other family members away on a pointless task to give himself time to commit the offences and he used violence on the girl.
Rasheed also ran away at the end of the trial.
However he has been caught and taken to prison.
Justice Madigan said Rasheed has to serve a minimum of 14 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.
Story by: Vijay Narayan
